‘History Of A Pleasure Seeker’: Olumide Olorunfemi & Bebe Bettencourt

Hulu pilot History of a Pleasure Seeker continues to add to its cast.

Olumide Olorunfemi, who recently featured in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Bebe Bettencourt, who starred in Australian drama series Eden, have joined.

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The project, which is based on Richard Mason’s novel, is a musical drama set in Amsterdam in 1907 — a tale of a charismatic young man’s explosive adventures through all the temptations of the Belle Époque.

The book, which was published in 2012 by Penguin Random House, follows Piet Barol, who has an instinctive appreciation for pleasure and a gift for finding it. When his mother dies, Piet applies for a job as tutor to the troubled son of Europe’s leading hotelier – a child who refuses to leave his family’s mansion on one of Amsterdam’s grandest canals. As Piet enters this glittering world, he learns its secrets and finds his life transformed.

Carla Woodcock and Callum Kerr star.

Olorunfemi plays Sisanda, a Xhosa woman raised in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, who is used to being the most admired young lady in her village. She did not imagine she’d spend her life cleaning other people’s floors.

Meanwhile, Bettencourt plays Louisa, who has her father’s entrepreneurial instincts, and is exasperated by the constraints of her social position. A keen observer of human frailty, she’s the strategist who maintains her sister’s social dominance of their gilded world.

ABC Signature is producing the pilot in association with American Gods and The Mosquito Coast producer Fremantle and Hat Trick Productions, the British production company behind series such as Showtime’s Episodes and Anna Paquin’s Flack.

Mason executive produces with Robinson, who will direct, along with The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey, Hat Trick Productions boss Jimmy Mulville and Fremantle. Christopher Read will compose the music, along with Mason, and also serves as executive producer.

Olorunfemi, who has also starred in short films Rhyme or Die and Big Age, is repped by Independent Talent Group.

Bettencourt, who also starred alongside Eric Bana in feature film The Dry and stars in Joseph Kosinski’s Spiderhead alongside Miles Teller, is repped by Independent Talent, United Management, and Principal LA.